


The Night Train

by MaskedHooligan



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Fluff, human!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 21:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4320867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaskedHooligan/pseuds/MaskedHooligan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night train was always most definitely under the “cons” column… until someone new started joining you on your nightly rides back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Train

**Author's Note:**

> This was the longest romance related fic I've written in a while, so please excuse the cheesiness.

It really wasn’t that bad when you’d written out a list of pros and cons.

Your job certainly wasn’t a bad one. You’d had it for years, and for good reason—it paid well, you had respect, and it was owned by your best friend’s dad, who was an all-around cool guy when you got past the weird obsession with gladiators. True, every once in a while you encountered difficult people, but considering difficult people exist everywhere, there’s not much chance of avoiding them entirely.

Unless you quit your job to become a fully-fledged hermit, but you had your doubts with how such a career could manage to pay bills. _That_ list of pros and cons hadn’t brought up favorable results.

No, all in all you were fine with the situation, save for one unavoidable feature—the commute.

You loved where you lived in the city where you could stay close to the action and keep in touch with your pals. Add to that the fact that your rent was an absolute steal by city standards—really, by the standards of any place—and it was obvious why you had no intention of moving out, even if it was closer to work. The result?

The night train. A loud, grungy form of travel, but it did its job. As much as you enjoyed your job, the hours ran late, leaving the most efficient form of travel to be the train you rode home every night after work. Thankfully, this was a ride that you took solo.

The night was like any other. You sat in your usual spot, thumbing through notifications on your phone as you waited for the musical tone that signified the doors were closing, followed soon after with the droning, electronic voice reminding you where the train was headed. 

This time however, a man stepped onto the train just before the doors slid shut. He noticed the surprise on your face when he looked up, and instead of the usual disgruntled look that most people had this late at night just wanting to get home, he _smiled_ at you.

He looked away to find a seat before he could see your flustered expression. What was he smiling for? It was almost like the unspoken requisite to be able to even get on a night train around here was to look thoroughly fed up with the world in general or on some form of questionable narcotics. Sometimes both.

You continued to thumb through your messages as the familiar automated voice reminded you that you had, indeed, boarded the correct train. You glanced over out of the corner of your eye at the stranger, who was digging enthusiastically in his coat pockets. He pulled out a jumbled up cord that turned out to be headphones.

_Good,_ you had thought. _Now I won’t have to listen to whatever weird music he’s probably into. Someone that cheerful who takes the night train has got to be into some weird stuff._

After a couple jabs in the general direction of the correct port, the handsome—wait, _‘handsome’_?—stranger plugged in his headphones and inserted the buds in his ears. His grin quickly disappeared as his brow furrowed, swiping at his phone.

You knew that face. His headphones probably weren’t working correctly. Despite not knowing the guy, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Being stranded on a boring train without working headphones was a fate you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

He leaned back in his seat, looking up at the dirty ceiling as the train began moving. You couldn’t see his face, but you doubted he was smiling now. He sat back up normally, looking over at you with blue eyes that were too pretty to be entirely fair. Too late to pretend you hadn’t watched him the last couple minutes.

“Hey.”

And he had a cute voice too. Damn him.

“Headphones not working?” you attempted small talk, though you kept your own phone out to keep things looking casual.

“Yeah,” he sighed, running his hand through his wild hair.

“That’s rough, buddy.”

He half laughed, another smile directed your way as he caught your reference.

“Would you mind if I played it anyway?”

“…Go ahead,” you said. While you were hardly enthusiastic about it, it was only a one time deal, so even if his music was super obnoxious, you figured you could manage just once.

He smiled thankfully—geez, this guy smiled at you a lot—and swiped quickly at the device in his hand.

“I’ll keep it quiet,” he promised.

You nodded, looking down at your own phone with every intent to stick to yourself for the rest of the ride. Until that is, you recognized a familiar tune. A favorite one.

He was looking straight at you when you whipped your head up.

“Too loud? I’ll just turn it down…”

“No, no,” you shook your head vigorously. “Actually, could you turn it up?”

His whole face seemed to light up.

“My pleasure!”

“I love this song,” you admitted as the music filled up the train car.

He opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted as the chorus started and the two of you starting singing along as enthusiastically as only two people having drunk too much coffee throughout the day can. By the time the song ended, you had both managed to start an impressive harmony.

“You’ve got good taste in music,” you said, a little breathlessly.

“You too.”

“I’m [Name].”

“I’m Matthias.”

And there was one more pro for the night train.

It became the new constant. Each day for the rest of your work week Matthias would join you on the ride back to the city. You listened to music—even introduced each other to some new songs—and talked about whatever goofy things came to mind. The old lonely ride had been replaced with something you started to look forward to.

Funny, you hadn’t even remembered ever thinking of the ride before as being lonely.

“So what’s got you riding this train every night?” Matthias asked.

“Work,” you replied, swinging your feet in time with the music up on your booth seat.

Matthias, sitting across from you, raised his eyebrows.

“That’s a long way to commute every day.”

“Only Monday to Friday,” you corrected him, pausing for a moment to make your fingers fly across an invisible instrument to accompany the instrumental break. “I like my job, all things considered. But I also like where I live in the city. What about you? You’re doing the same commute I am.”

“Not by choice. It’s… a family emergency sorta thing.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, I—”

“Hey, it’s fine.”

You lapsed into silence as Matthias became suddenly engrossed in his phone.

“Dad’s going downhill,” Matthias said suddenly, startling you. “It’s not like there’s much we can do but stand around, but everyone’s just been hanging out for moral support.” He nearly laughed at his own uncharacteristic sobriety. “I’m kinda getting sick of hospitals now.”

“Oh, he’s at the hospital back there,” you nodded your head back in the direction you were coming from.

“Yep.”

“I’ve heard it’s a really great place,” you said lamely. “I mean, there’s a lot of good doctors. They’ve helped a lot of people.”

“Mm.”

There was another silence as you silently berated yourself for even asking him. A couple songs passed by before you risked opening your mouth again.

“Do you live in the city, then?”

“Nah,” Matthias looked out the windows that had clearly seen better days. “I’m just crashing with an old college friend. I live pretty far away.”

“How long have you been here?”

“My flight came in Monday morning. And it’s Friday. So that’s…” he looked at you meaningfully.

“What, you can’t count up five days yourself?”

“Ugh, it’s too late and my brain is too fried for that.”

“Easy for you to say,” you pushed his nearest arm. You pressed on with your current train of thought before you could get too distracted by how firm his muscles felt under his shirt. “ _I’ve_ been working all day.”

“You sound like my brothers,” Matthias protested, but you could catch a hint of amusement.

Mission Cheer Matthias back up: success.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Depends.” He shrugged.

The night train rolled to a stop, marking the end of another nightly return trip.

“Do you have any plans this weekend?” you asked, gathering up your bag and standing as the train’s automated voice informed the two of you that you should stand back as the doors open and to not get out of your seats until the train has come to a complete stop.

“Riding back and forth on these old clunkers,” said Matthias he followed you out onto the mostly abandoned station.

“Oh… right.”

“Have a good weekend, since I probably won’t see you.”

“Yeah,” you said, watching his retreating back as he walked off. “You too.”

For once, you thought, as you walked back to your apartment under the dim streetlights, I’m looking forward to riding the night train back Monday night.

And so you did. For another couple weeks. As annoyed as you were at yourself for how ridiculously cheesy it was, it became the highlight of your day. Lounging on the ramshackle seats. Listening to music. Talking about whatever came to mind. Laughing over the stupidest things.

That’s why it took you by such surprise.

“What?”

“Yeah, he’s in the clear. It’s like a miracle.” Matthias was practically beaming.

“So, what does it mean?” you asked, even though you already had a good idea.

“He’s going to be discharged in a couple days. He has to take it easy from now on, but that’s still better than what we could have hoped.”

“Matthias, that’s great.”

The train slowed down to a stop, accompanied by its automated voice. You wanted to shout at it that no, it couldn’t stop. Surely it could manage another loop or two. Of course you were glad to hear his dad was better, but that meant that he wouldn’t need to keep visiting him and the rest of the family, and if he wasn’t visiting them, he wouldn’t need to take the train to get back.

“Man, it keeps feeling like the trip gets faster every time,” Matthias rose from his seat. You followed him halfheartedly.

Out in the station, you didn’t see another living soul besides the two of you. You turned to face him when you saw he was looking at you.

“So you probably won’t need to keep riding the train then,” you said, impressing yourself with how casually detached you managed to sound.

“Doesn’t look like it,” said Matthias, his voice mirroring your own.

“You’ll probably be leaving the city soon too.”

“In a few days, yeah.”

“So, this is it? The end.”

“Looks like it.”

There was an awkward silence that you and Matthias passed by looking everywhere but at each other.

“It’s been a pleasure,” you said at last, thrusting out a hand.

“The pleasure was mine,” Matthias replied, shaking it.

There was a pause after you’d finished shaking hands where the two of you held on. But all too quickly some distant shouting from somewhere else broke the spell and the hands retracted. Knowing there was no good to be had by drawing it out, you turned and started walking off in the direction of your apartment. Judging by the sound, Matthias was walking off in the opposite direction.

You had only just gotten out on the street when your feet simply froze, refusing to move. Without thought you were turning around, breaking into a run. After all the awesome nights on the night train, no way were you just letting the two of you part like that.

Apparently Matthias had a similar idea; you saw him only just stopping back where the two of you had parted. He looked over at you at once, his hair looking more wild than normal, like he’d just been running his hands through it.

“So I was just thinking we should actually keep in touch,” you said quickly, slowing down to a speed walk until you were standing in front of him again. “I mean, I don’t know about you, but after the past few weeks I’ve really come to think of you as a friend.”

“Yeah, same here.”

“So if you wouldn’t mind just putting your number in,” you thrust out your hand, clutching onto your phone.

“Only if you do the same for me,” Matthias put his own phone into your hand. 

His own lingered for just a moment longer than needed. You could feel your heart fluttering and breaths coming a little harder. Damn, he was cute.

There was a short silence as you both punched in your numbers and switched your phones back.

“I really wasn’t happy about all of this at first,” Matthias said, and there was something softer about his voice. A voice you’d heard him only use when he was talking about his family. “Of course I wasn’t happy about what was going on with my dad, but the whole traveling back and forth thing.”

“Understandable,” you nodded.

“But you made it all worthwhile.”

You became particularly interested in one of the flickering lights above you for a moment.

“This is probably that silver lining thing that Tino keeps bringing up,” Matthias said. You nodded at the name of one of his brothers; you’d both talked about your families at length the past week. “If my dad hadn’t had his accident, I never would have come back. And I never would have met you.”

“And if I took that other job closer to home I wouldn’t have been on the train to meet you,” you added.

“You’re easily one of the best things that could have possibly happened.”

You scanned his face for any sign of this being a joke, but it was hardly his style. No, he had his completely serious look. Looking at him right then, you felt the strongest urge you’d ever had to kiss someone.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” you replied, struggling to keep your eyes from staring at his lips and wondering what they’d feel like against yours.

He took a step forward, and suddenly you felt like there wasn’t nearly enough oxygen in the air because it was getting much harder to breathe. And there was just his beautiful blue eyes looking into yours.

“I…” you took a shaky breath, balling your hands up into fists before they started acting on their own and got tangled up in his hair. Was it as soft as it looked?

Matthias nodded, near imperceptible, prompting you on. There was less than a foot of space between you.

“I’ve kind of had a long day,” you said lamely, inwardly shouting some choice insults at yourself for your sudden show of cowardice. “I should probably be heading back.”

“Yeah,” Matthias said. He almost sounded disappointed, but it really had been a long day, and you were definitely tired, so you did your best to convince your brain not to look too into it. “Yeah, of course. Me too.”

“But call me,” you said, taking a few steps back.

“I will.”

You turned, rubbing your arms as you started to walk back to your apartment again. Angry at yourself for chickening out or not, you had always cherished that beloved saying, of those who live and run away to live to fight again. You’d applied it to your life more than once.

Hopefully it wouldn’t be too late in this specific case before he flew back out to where he lived.

Miles away.

Okay, this pep talk was not helping in the slightest.

You nearly jumped out of your skin as your phone started to play your favorite song. The very same that Matthias first played at your first meeting. Not daring to look back, but feeling pretty hopeful, you answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” said Matthias, both over the phone and behind you. You turned around to see him smiling sheepishly.

“Checking to see if it works?” you laughed.

“Actually, I forgot something. Can you come back for a second?”

“Sure,” you walked back slowly until you were standing in front of him yet again.

“Bye,” he said, hanging up his phone and looking at you expectantly.

You put your phone into your pocket and watched him for a moment.

“Well?” you said once an explanation was not forthcoming.

“I just had one last request.”

“And that would be?”

“Will you allow me to kiss you?”

Your pause was long enough that he started to look worried.

“Was that too—”

“I thought you’d never ask, dummy,” you interrupted, grabbing the collar of his coat and pulling him over until there was no space left between you.


End file.
